Afobe set to sign Bolton loan deal

Benik Afobe looks set to follow in the footsteps of Jack Wilshere and Ryo Miyaichi by sealing a loan move to Bolton Wanderers.

The England under-19 striker admitted while on the club’s Asia tour that he’d be happy to further his football education elsewhere recognising that his chance of first team football at the Emirates will be limited this term.

Having already undertaken stints with Huddersfield and Reading, the Bolton Evening News reports that the teenager will now work with Owen Coyle, whose relationship with Arsene Wenger appears to have given him the upper hand over other suitors, despite his side’s relegation to the Championship.

It has not been confirmed whether Afobe will sign a year-long deal or a contract which allows him to be recalled in January.

A report in the Mirror earlier in the week also hinted that Ryo Miyaichi could return to the Reebok Stadium, however, having held his own in the Premier League last season it would be strange to see him drop a division. Wigan have also been mooted as a possible destination.

In other news Arsenal confirmed yesterday that versatile Youth Academy graduate Nico Yennaris has signed a new deal at the club. The Greek Cypriot-Chinese dynamo (we speculate that there’s not too many of them about!) impressed in first team cameo performances in the Carling Cup and will no doubt be over the moon having grown up as a Gooner.

this is great, Afobe really is a talent and hopefully this loan will give him the experience to cut it in the premier league. What I have seen of him, you can tell he’s got all the potential to be a huge player for us in the future.

Fucking finally. I was just about to type in the legrove address, phew missed a bullet there.

On Afobe, I love him, he has quick feet unlike most big guys and can be able to hold his own on the wings (sublime trickery). I say get him the one year loan and I reckon he’l be ready for us in the 2013/2014 season and so on.

from the latest tour of the far east he did seem like he needed regular playing time elsewhere; and bolton has been good for our young players.

and has anybody ‘understood’ espying cazorla at the airport yet? we are really tired of this RVP shit, and if he comes, then his agent’s mistimed statement that we have no ambition will be totally bollocked.
not that arsene has not won this game, anyway. i understand the need for a relationship between a coach and his captain, but i really could not see how wenger would devulge his plans for arsenal to a mere player – even a captain – and still retain respect as le boss.
my guess is VP was told what he needed to know, and he puked on it, and tried to go megaphone so he could whip the fans’ emotions. that gamble has now exploded in his face. whatever happens to him now, arsene has shown him how things are done.
like king henry said, we will be just as fine with or without Van Persie. too bad he overstated his ego

Absolutely spot on… Any other Summer and Van Persie’s statement will have been viewed upon very differently by the fans, he has actually been made to look very silly indeed in his statement as the signings of Podolski, Giroud and (hopefully) Cazorla (spelling?!) show unadulterated ambition.

With the development of some of the younger players, I can see this being a very effective side with the experience of Arteta, BFG and some of the older players bringing the youngsters on.

I saw a stat the other day that at the end of September/early October, we were 15 points behind Man City, at the end of the season we were 19 points behind so over a period of 3/4 of the season (which includes no FB’s for 2 months), we nearly matched their form – include the signings we have, and look like making – how can Van Persie honestly say “we lack ambition”.

If I was him, I would sack my Agent because this has been a PR disaster for him when you consider the high regard he was held in.

I may be wrong but I also believe that its his Agent that was one of the guys convicted of Match Fixing in the French League which cost Wenger 2 league titles. The fact that he represents Van Persie is alarming in my opinion – why would they choose him?

If I was Wenger I would bring in a club policy that if your represented by either that guy (name slips my mind) or Darren Dein (who architected the exit of many Arsenal players, inc. fabregas) then they should be sacked/sold.

Hopefully it’ll do him good, he seems to be a fairly physical player so that can only stand him in good stead for what is, IMO the most physically strenuous league in Europe.
Maybe Coyle can sort out a bit of his technique, it does seem that he snatches at chances a bit, from what I’ve seen preseason

Excited about Nico. Looks to be a gem of a player, from what I saw of him last season. Looked solid and held his own pretty well in that game against Manu. Can cover for Sagna too. In fact I think it might be a good idea to send Jenks out on loan, considering Nico and Le Coq can fill in at RB.

Nico over jenks?……i’l go with jenks coz he’s.got quite the bulky stature needed there.
Remember the wigan game, the way sagna hand his hands full with big victor moses?, now put Nico in Sagnas shoes and I reckon no contest at all.
Plus he’s a good crosser not that yennaris isn’t, just saying he can provide a muscle up for the ball more than Nico can.

I’d go with Coquelin over Jenkinson against clubs like Chelsea and City. Jenkinson is a better bet for the Stokish sides but he gets caught out by the cleverer strikers. Yennaris is interesting. Didn’t rate him at all when I first watched him but the fact that we kept him, despite some big handicaps – he used to be really tiny and he had a very bad injury – suggest he’s a tough character with lots of potential. If he goes on loan, let’s hope it’s to somewhere that appreciates him and he gets more games than he did last season. Thought he looked very good pre-season.

Podolski: hahah hey, you there, over here look yeah i’m laughing at you you sorry bastard, is that what you call weight training? Go on and scram, and leave everything with the number 10 on it here, it no longer belongs to you.

RvP: ( thinking to himself ) if i can’t lift this how the hell am i going to carry my wallet home at the end of the week at city…of course! il pay someone to do it with all the money I will have.

“Don’t worry, Meine kleine schweinhund, it may seem like hard work right now, but how else will you be able to carry all those suitcases of petro-dollars that you’re reeeeeaaaally itching to move for?’

This move should be to a decent mid-table Premier League side, not Bolton. What’s he gonna learn in the Championship?

According to BBC Cefax, we will sign both Carzola and Sahin within the next seven days. Good. For me, those signings mean that a, Walcott will be on his way (great!) and b, Wilshire will not be back in the first team any time soon.

Like Yennaris, he did well last season and looks solid for someone his size

If we sign Carzola and Sahin I think I’ll start to get even more excited about the start of the season than usual

RvP or no RvP, we’re going to score a few next season with the options we already have. Citeh won’t be able to rid themselves of Tevez and possibly Cashebayor either, and Utd are fading – the fact that RvP is their key target doesn’t show the kind of ambition they had a few years back. Chelsea? Nah. Lucky last season, that’ll run out this time round.

We won’t finish above City. Their squad is just too strong. I agree with you about United: they needed to sign three quality players, and have only purchased a fairly decent midfielder. Their squad is ageing and going backwards.

Chelsea are an unknown. If RDM can get the best out of the existing and new players then they might challenge for the title. But it could just as easy go the same way as last season under AVB.

City were tremendously lucky last year, coming ever so close to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. their squad, whilst fantastic on paper, looks to have the unity of the dutch dressing room. they *should* win the league this season, but there’s a lot of reasons to believe that they won’t, and tht they will implode in the most entertaining bollix up for a long long time.

The only constant over the last 3 seasons has been the lack of an outstanding championship winning side – there’s been a lot of default winning and nobody has grabbed the league by the bollocks in the way that Wenger and Ferguson used to, and Mourinho did for Chelsea.

and *that*, my little sausage, is why i would allow myself a little squeal of delight if we sign either or both of these midfielders – it shows an appetite for winning that we’ve not seen in nigh on 10 years. let’s have it, is what i say

While I would rather have seen him stay with us this season, knowing how Arsene has a tendency to overuse his key players and underuse the fringe ones, it’s probably for the best that Afobe goes out on loan. Staying with us this season, he could end up getting very little game time until we get hit with loads of injuries, then find himself out of form and out of his depth.

Agree about Wigan being a much better bet. I like Martinez and they play more our style so our players would learn more and be better appreciated. Depressing the way the troll clubs in the lower leagues take our players, seemingly just because they come from us but without knowing much about them, then find they’re not to their trollish taste and leave them on the bench.

I guess it depends on the competition for starting places. Would Afobe get into the Wigan team? I suspect not, not unless they have injury problems so maybe Bolton is the best bet for the moment. Just hope we have the option of recalling him in January if it doesn’t work out.

We don’t need Miyaichi back on loan. Really nice lad and a trier but with Petrov, CY Lee and Eagles, he’s not good enough for our first team. I’m surprised some of you think he’d be good enough for yours!!

Hope Benik Afobe can break through into our first team. He’ll have a tough time of it with Ngog/K.Davies/Sordell in getting regular game time and he will likely start off as our 4th choice but if he takes his chances when he gets them there is definitely potential there for him to have a successful loan spell here.

My fears in a nutshell. What’s Coyle taking Afobe for, then? As I asked on an earlier thread, how much does he know about him, how much has he watched him? Sure, Afobe’s an excellent young player with great movement but his finishing is still pretty dire so why would Bolton use him? Coyle’s job is to win games not give our players 90 minutes’ finishing practice.

There is potential for Afobe to have a good run at it here, Miranda. I’d say it’s our weakest area of the pitch. Even if he gets 25 games, 15 off the bench, in a side looking to win the 2nd tier, that could play a huge role in his development. He had that kind of experience at Huddersfield in L1, stepping up to a Championship title challenging team where there’ll be the same pressures (albeit in a division below) as he’d face at Arsenal with a team expected to win most weeks will only do him good. 25 games at Bolton for example I’d argue would be more useful than 46 games at Barnsley.

There is definitely room for him at Bolton, Coyle is probably looking at it as a strength in depth move with potential to be a masterstroke and low risks if it doesn’t work. K.Davies has been on the decline for the past 12-18 months, Ngog needs to deliver but I personally worry about his goalscoring ability, lot of pressure on Sordell to score those goals. Championship winning sides usually have a guarenteed 20+ goal a season man, on paper, that’s the only area of our team where we are perhaps lacking so if Afobe can get off the bench and grab a few goals, I think there’ll be potential for him to break into the regular 1st team.

I hope he contributes to Boltons promotion, I have a soft spot for them since they took Jack and Ryo on loan, which is strange because under that fat walrus head Allardyce I hated them. I think perhaps it was the combination of Allardyce’s ‘scientific’ approach to the game along with the myth he created that Bolton were our bogey team, when in reality the results showed we had a couple of poor defeats but but nothing remarkable. Oh yes I think watching Kevin Davies elbowing and kicking everyone and telling them to stop moaning because it’s a mans game and he’s a tough player, then throwing himself to to the ground if anyone so much as sneezed near him, didn’t help. My disdain for them. Anyway, good luck Bolton.

I would wish Bolton the best of luck in their pursuit for immediate promotion back into the top flight, but frankly i’d far rather see more southern teams in the premier league, particularly nice ones like southampton and charlton who used to gift us 6 points a season back when we won championships

Oh I see the advantages on your side! He’s got huge potential – even Barca scouted him when he was playing in the under-17s and wanted to take him – and he’s very low risk because his wages must be minimal. Snag is, as I say, his finishing is far from clinical, so unless he improves very rapidly I’m not sure you’ll be using him as much as we’d like. But yes, he enjoyed being at Huddersfield, and their fans liked him a lot, so let’s hope it works out.